Filthy Roman Sponge

This clip is taken from the sermon "Eyewitness to Jesus," preached by Pastor Mark Driscoll at the Mars Hill Church Ballard campus in Seattle, Washington, on September 20, 2009. It is the 1st sermon in our sermon series, "Luke's Gospel: Investigating the Man Who Is God."

To watch the full sermon, visit: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/luke/eyewitness-to-jesus

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Jesus
• Crucifixion
• Luke
• Bible

[EdM021]

@BluePhoenixNC You're welcome! :) I am like you, I base my hypotheses on the same historical evidence. BTW I found out in Pliny the Elder's Natural History that hyssop was used to treat inflammation of the anus and that it was to be surrounded by a sponge filled with vinegar when the treatment was applied, then some strong vinegar was to be taken internally. (NH 23.27.54) I found this out in the comment on the 23rd book of NH at Bill Thayer's webpage at penelope dot uchicago dot edu.

[BluePhoenixNC]

@EdM021 I appreciate you are getting back to me on this subject. I would say, the pain easing effect is not just limited to the 'internals'. But then again I am not a scientist or even an MD. I simply base my theories on historical 'evidence' written by romans and available in any well sorted library. Even though history and religion are my passion, I am aware that there are many theories and some may be offending to others. So I just wanted to bring my theory up as another point of view.

[EdM021]

@BluePhoenixNC I read in "The Jesus Mysteries" by Gandy & Freike that Gall was given to women undergoing childbirth to dull the pain and ease the birth. Unfortunately they didn't give their sources! Now if the authors are right, why would Roman soldiers give a crucified man gall to consume? Only if Roman crucifixion was a kind of impalement (not just nailing) would it make any sense. (Read my comment below from a year ago)

[EdM021]

@BluePhoenixNC Except in the early spring Hyssop (Zatar / Syrian Oregano) was and is entirely herbaceous at the time of Passover. There is no way the hyssop could support a sponge. And John 19:29 in the Greek clearly says the sponge was wrapped around the hyssop. Which means the gallows wouldn't have been that tall.

[BluePhoenixNC]

neither one of us was there, and we do not know if this was meant as an insult. Furthermore: it was customary (per roman history records) to give the crucified this sponge of sour wine (vinegar) as an act of mercy to lessen the pain. Why it was handed on a stick, The mouth of the crucified was well out of reach for any bystander, and since the crucified could not use the hands a cup would not have worked either. Using a Hyssop stick, just released the numbing properties of hyssop into the sponge

[BluePhoenixNC]

-continued: aware of the numbing effect. Then at the end he requested a drink. The roman soldier who gave him the sponge  is referred to as a merciful soldier, shall 2000 yrs of scripture actually lie ? - We still have this type of sour wine in the middle east and old greek empire. The closest is the greek wine Metaxa, which is kind of bitter. Even though Latrines and their visitors may or may not have been cleaned with sour wine, I dare to doubt that insult was the reason behind it.

[BluePhoenixNC]

OK, this theory is intriguing and makes sense to a degree, but I do not believe this. First off, sour wine or vinegar (not the one we know today), was a common drink amongst Roman Soldiers and others. Since water in the cities was most likely polluted most drank some sort of wine.

Sour wine with some sort of addition, gall/wormwood or any other bitter substance has an desensibilizing effect. Numbing the pain. That was the reason why Jesus first refused the first drink, as he was surely -

[EdM021]

@Qrazii Exactly. And what the bleep was gall?

[JerryNixon]

I simply cannot believe this is being taught without better evidence. I can't help but ask if this crazy idea were true, then why would the sponge be there in the first place? This video appears to have been in the middle of the sermon. For the sake of giving the guy a chance, perhaps there was something prior to this that explained the missing holes in the sermon. Otherwise, no no no.

[Qrazii]

Do remember, they also gave JESUS gall to drink...why gall???